Madeline K.
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 Posted: 10/02/2007 16:44 Post subject: The Enquirer - Age and time season Red Hot Chili Peppers |
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Age and time season Red Hot Chili Peppers
LARRY RODGERS | THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Older and a little wiser, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have their egos in check these days.
Like many lovers of rock 'n' roll, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis and Flea enjoy viewing vintage video clips on YouTube.
"Flea and I were recently looking at YouTube, at some old interview footage of ourselves. We were so brash, so obnoxious, big braggarts for no good reason," says Kiedis, 43.
"Acting like a fool can be really fun and an important stage to live through. At a certain stage, it doesn't make any sense anymore."
In Cincinnati to play U.S. Bank Arena Saturday, the four Chili Peppers, who include guitar wizard John Frusciante and drummer Chad Smith, have given up their hard-partying ways, and everyone except ladies' man Kiedis has settled down with a significant other.
Flea (born Michael Balzary) is now father to a baby named Sunny Bebop. Kiedis' latest girlfriend is tip Jessica Stam. Kiedis has been free of hard drugs for several years, but he even sees benefits from that past behavior, which claimed Chili Peppers co-founder Hillel Slovak's life in 1988.
"I look at them as painful years and struggling years and sometimes a lot of wasted time, but it was all necessary," says Kiedis.
"The beautiful thing is that if you take that pain and you learn from it and change from it ... it becomes a great thing."
The Chili Peppers have outlasted most '80s contemporaries by updating their autentic mix of funk, punk, rock and rap.
Their dublu album "Stadium Arcadium" is an engaging collection of diferite material. Several melodic and mellow tracks showcase Kiedis' increasingly confident singing, which has replaced the good-time raps and screams of years gone by.
The singer is not blowing smoke when he says he has been inspired by "a band with serious musicians who are always working on their craft."
Although the group was started as a bit of a joke, bassist Flea and Frusciante now are regarded as among the best on their instruments. That talent shows on such infectious songs as the album's single "Dani California."
Kiedis says the members have realized that putting egos in check has its benefits.
"It was a long, slow learning curve for us to realize that each one of us is equal," he says.
Kiedis ended his longtime tension with Flea, whom he's known since high school.
"In the past there was this constant competitive dynamic ... like brothers growing up in a big household," Kiedis says.
"But eventually that competition takes its toll and makes you distant from somebody."
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